[cross-posted to the wedding blog] Gotta get me one of these egg and muffin toasters!
Categories
Someone on the #joiito IRC channel quipped that the “Vista” in Windows
Vista (the next version of the Microsoft Windows) is an acronym for the
top five Windows problems:
- Viruses
- Instability
- Spyware
- Trojans
- Adware
Spyware and adware are serious enough problems that according to Bob and Greg from Tucows’ shareware department, spyware and adware removal software is the most popular and profitable shareware category right now.
I think that “Vista” could be short for “Vaunted Imminent Scoble–Touted Application”.
Categories
Did Anyone Go?
“Ensign, I don’t think you’re in uniform.”
The Henrico Country Public School Board (they’re in Richmond, Virginia)
has 1,000 iBook G3s that they’re selling for US$50 each. That’s right
— fifty bucks!
Here are the specs:
-
White Power PC G3 iBook
- CPU Speed: 500 MHz
- 320 MB RAM
- 10GB hard drive
- CD-ROM drive
- 12.1 inch display
- Built-in 10/100 Base-TX
- Wireless card — IEEE 802.11b
- FireWire 400
- Two 12 Mbps USB ports
- AC adapter
The machines has OS X 10.2.8 and AppleWorks installed.
This is pretty the same type of iBook I had and sold a couple of years ago,
shortly after I joined Tucows. I sold mine for CDN$800 (currently
US$650). I used it primarily as a Unix hacking box for developing PHP
and Python apps for clients.
Here are the rules:
- The sale is on August 9th at Richmond International Raceway at 600
E. Laburnum Ave., Richmond, VA.
- The sale starts at 9 a.m., with the gates and line forming at 7 a.m. Camping and overnight parking aren’t allowed.
- 1,000 laptops are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. There is a limit of one laptop per person.
- Cash is accepted, as are cheques (even out-of-state ones) are accepted with proper ID.
- All sales are as-is with no warranty and are final.
If anyone is planning to attend this sale and bring an extra
person who doesn’t want to purchase one, drop me a line! I’d gladly
send you the cash to cover the purchase of one plus shipping — I’d
love to use one as an internet radio/house MP3 player/home automation
thingy.
One of the best ways to get up my nose is to accuse me of not knowing what I’m talking about. This happens in my comments once in a blue moon, and I usually have to become the commenter’s Dad and “take him or her to school in the car of pain”. Hop aboard, Junior!
Normally, I’d take this up in the comments, but they’ve been buried in spam as of late. Besides, I’m the captain of this blog, and if someone wants to accuse me of ignorance, I reserve the right to spank him or her in a top-level article.
Here’s the comment that started it:
I think you either have the term wrong; you likely mean traders or some other creature of Wall Street but investment bankers do things like getting money for IPOs not give out stock tips to the media.
Do you really know what an investment bank does? I suspect this is not the case.
I replied to the little snot as follows:
You’re wrong and right:
WRONG: I know what an investment banker does. I’ve met a number doing dog-and-pony shows during the dot-com days. Some of them could use a smack on the head anyways.
RIGHT: I had a brain fart while typing. The term I’m looking for is investment analyst. I’ve met these too, and shall correct the entry.
Not happy with having lost some debating points, the commenter fired back:
You can acuse [sic] investment analysts of many things (I am an economist and the party line on them is that they must either be charlatans or they should not be talking to you) but they dont really shuffle wealth around, mostly they give their opinion on the value of an asset. that is they are Appreisers [sic] who happen to specialize on assets that pay dividends and which have payouts linked to the fortunes of some legal corporation.
I cant see how it could be true that “shuffling it [wealth] around.” is all they do without it being true of all people who work as appraisers, can you?
Whacked-out assumptions and failed analogies: this person really must be an economist!
Claiming that they are charlatans and then saying that they aren’t shufflers of wealth is contradictory. Shuffling wealth — into their pockets and those of their friends — rather than creating it is what charlatans do!
Secondly, I don’t think all appraisers are shufflers of wealth; some actually provide useful services, and those services are the creation of wealth. The commenter’s assertion is the classic “confusing the whole for the part” tactic from high school debating. Here’s an only-slightly-more-ridiculous statement using the same line of reasoning:
- I have a dim view of investment analysts
- Investment analysts are carbon-based life forms
- Therefore, I have a dim view of carbon-based lifeforms
I shall close by addressing the commenter using the terminology of his/her field of “study”: the supply of your babble exceeds the demand.
Bonus reading: Economist Jokes!
In the comments to my recent article about the job of “Cuddle Party Facilitator”, Carla points to this announcement of upcoming Cuddle Parties in downtown Accordion City.
There’s a mixed-gender one tomorrow and a
queer-positive/tranny-positive one next Wednesday; if you’re going,
make sure you attend the right one!
(Not familiar with the term “Cuddle Party”? See here. Then go here.)
Even more interesting than the announcements are the comments. As I
write this, there hasn’t yet been a single positive comment, which is
saying something considering that these are people on LiveJournal
(whose motto should be “With friends like these, who needs hallucinations?”).
Note: No, I don’t think all LiveJournal people are messed up. Just a disturbingly high percentage of them. (The Accordion City LJers are, from my experience, are a relatively well-adjusted bunch.)